Three Questions

Photo: "The Three Questions" by Jon Muth

"Mom, spending the weekend in the hospital really changes the way you look at and think about things. There were so many people in pain-in their bodies and in their minds... and then the lady in the bed next to Nonnie ['grandmother' in Italian]  was confused and scared and didn't know where she was. She tried to escape and she was yelling at the nurse who was guarding her. She just kept trying to run away. It was so sad I wanted to help her but didn't know how. I wanted to cry for her."

This is what my 12 year old daughter said to me last night after having a falling out with a girl friend (via text messages) over the issue of  "minding one's own business."  Lauren had just come home from visiting her grandmother in the hospital over the weekend (Her dad's mother is having triple bypass surgery on this week.) and began this discussion unprompted after her friend told her that she did something on my daughter's behalf, without asking my daughter's permission.

"What hurts most is that she [her friend] knew where I was all weekend and she didn't even ask me once how Nonnie was feeling...she just started telling me about herself and what she did this weekend - and then she got mad at me for being mad at her for not asking my permission...UGH!! "

Lauren added: "Mom, I'm so tired of the arguing and the girl drama... If everyone [her classmates] would just stay out of what isn't their business and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and saying, and if they could just show a little more care and respect for themselves and each other, then none of us would fight anymore. Everyone would stop stressing over the littlest, stupidest things, and only focus on what's really important."

I was at a loss for words for her, and humbled by her mature observations.

It reminded me of a story I used to tell her, and that I now use for yoga class work. Its called "The Three Questions".

In this adaptation of a a short story by Tolstoy, a young boy looks for the answers to his three questions about how to be a good person. He meets a monkey, a bird, a dog and a turtle and asks them his questions, but finds his answers unexpectedly through doing a heroic good deed.

The Boy's questions are:

• What is the best time to do things?
• Who is the most important person?
• What is the right thing to do?

There are many  themes and lessons in this story, for both young and old and it can be a creative tool for character education & social-emotional learning: to help children understand & remember the most important time, people and reasons that we are all in each other's lives.



Contact: barbara@bodylogique.com

Snowmen At Night

One of the things I love about my work is the inspiring creative people I get to meet, talk with and learn from every day. We all share, use and adapt ideas to what our children or students are working on at the moment. I LOVE the creative ideas and inspirations I get back! I received an e-mail last week from one such inspiring, energetic teacher.

Her name is Margaret Ricciardone & she has been working with children since 2004. She is a yoga teacher at Ridgewood Montessori in Paramus, NJ.

Margaret has also provided yoga programs for several preschools in the Bergen County area, as well as storytime, art, and cooking classes for the Saddle River Cultural Center. It is her mission to share her love of yoga with children in a warm, fun, non-competitive environment.

As a new mother, she participated in "Mommy and me" yoga classes with her two boys and worked as a co-op mom in their preschool, making her realize that working with children is her heart's desire.

Storytelling is an integral part of Margaret's curriculum and the children use their imaginations & bodies to become an active participant in the story. Margaret wrote to me about one way she creativity engaged the children in the story of  "Snowmen At Night"  and it was so awesome that I wanted to share it with you here:


Hi Barbara,

Just have to tell you, it was a fun class yesterday. Thanks so much for your ideas. Here's what we did:
 We opened with the Namaste song from Storytime Yoga. Then we [warned our hands by rubbing] and woke up our eyes, turned on our ears to listen better, etc. We became sprinklers/fountains, watering the grass and it started to get cold and the water turned to snow. Then we were snowflakes gently falling, then became a blizzard and then freezing rain.

I asked them what they liked to do in the snow and that led of course to our "SNOW-GA Adventure"! (I used Music-'Wipeout' to take them through the activities they were telling me). We then became snowmen. Our snowmen slowly melted and we put them back together using happy baby pose and rolling up and down on our backs to form the snowballs. Then we rested with Snowball Breath by imagining a snowball in our bellies getting bigger and bigger until it was big enough to throw. On the exhale we threw them....and they pummeled me with snowballs!

After that, we dusted ourselves off and read "Snowmen At Night". The children then imagined what snowmen did  and  we played a game where we did what we thought our snowmen do at night... dancing around, sledding, skiiing, etc (to the music of "Squirrels in my Pants"!) When I stopped the music, they had to "freeze". I pretended to be shocked that the snowmen were not as I had left them, commenting on each snowman and sometimes trying to move their frozen limbs. They loved it!
For relaxation, we imagined we were snowmen melting in to the yoga mat. To wake back up again we rebuilt ourselves in our minds.

I was going to have them draw their snowmen, but we ran out of time. I'm saving the "Snowflake Dance" for next time. I used coffee filters to make them (using kids scissors that cut jagged/curvy lines) and they can take them home next week.

PS- I was thinking about "The Mitten" story. If you use a bed sheet as the mitten, when the kids are all in the middle, hand them (or they can grab) a piece of the edge and bring it to the middle and up to their chins to look like they're in a mitten. Then they can give a giant sneeze, jump up and let go of their end. The same for a yoga mat - after they roll up, they can 'sneeze' their way out of it.

Thanks again for all the inspiration/ideas. Yesterday was a blast and I can't wait for next week!

Talk to you soon,


Margaret
 

You don't have to be a very experienced "Yogi" to play & move with kids and teach them in this manner. You can find a qualified children's yoga teacher to present a program for you. In the meantime, you can just grab a book and look around for inspiration! Don't just read a story BE a story!

(Thank you so much Margaret for sharing your fantastic ideas with us! : )
 
To contact Margaret about classes or to read more about her you can find her bio  here at Storytime yoga (under "Find a teacher in NJ"):  http://www.storytimeyoga.com/teacher_mRicciardone.html

To order a copy of "Snowmen At Night" click the link.




Contact: barbara@bodylogique.com

Mittens & Snow-ga!

Today I had the pleasure of visiting the Mom's Club in Levittown for some yoga fun! (I have not posted any actual pictures, to comply with the SLBC Mom's Club privacy policy.)

I walked into the community center to 8 very energetic 4-6 year old children (& a few younger siblings) &  for a brief moment, I pondered if they would pay attention & engage in the activities I had planned for them.

As I was putting down my bags, one curious young man (about  2 years old) wandered over to me and started to pull the colorful kid sized mats out of the bag.

I got down on his level and began to talk with him, and suddenly, not wanting to be left out, the others came over to see what we were doing.

"What's that?",  asked one "can I have it?"

"I like the teal one!!" said another (and yes, he actually said "teal"!)

"What are those for?"  asked the third as he was munching on Fish Crackers.

I seized the opportunity to explain (briefly) that these were my yoga mats and asked if they would like to play some games with me on the mats? They all said "Yes" excitedly (thank goodness!)

So thus began my class by putting them to work: "Okay, if you want to play, let's first take off our shoes and put them by the door," (and they did so very quickly & orderly I might add.)

"Now let's all pick up a mat and sit on the floor together so we all can see. " I had them sit in a semi circle in front of me, and (while they were still paying attention) I began the adventure!

We started with "The Om Song" (From the CD "Come Play Yoga!" Thank you Shari From Karma Kids! ) and then used a technique I use to bring focus: we rub our hands to make heat & "wake up" our eyes, (to see better) "turn on" our ears (to listen well) & "find" our voices ( to sing, speak clearly & use nice words to our friends).

"So who likes to play in the snow?" I asked and all of their hands went up! I continued with "What do you like to do in the snow?" and they each, one by one told me their favorite snow activity.

Then, I suggested we did some of those things right now and turning over on our bellies, on our [imaginary] sleds, we went on a "Sow-Ga" adventure right there in that room...we went sledding really, REALLY fast! We stood up carefully [on our imaginary snowboards] & began swooshing up & down & over big hills & deep valleys. We put on our skis, and went skiing cross country, down mountains and around the trees, to the left and right. Then finally, we went ice skating, gracefully balancing steadily on one leg on our 'ponds' . (*The actual yoga poses used were locust, warrior 2, warrior 1, chair and warrior 3.We used "Wipeout" to set the musical mood!)

We were pretty warm and winded after that, so we rested for a minute, using the "Breathing Ball" to calm and quiet our breath, and our beating hearts  then, we were ready for our story.

Since there is still snow on the ground, and more predicted, I selected "The Mitten" (an old folk tale of Russian origin.) For those of you unfamiliar with this story, a young boy, Nickolai, begs his grandmother, 'Baba', to knit him a pair of white mittens. In spite of her warnings that he will lose them and that they will be hard to find in the snow, he insists and she finally knits him a pair.

It isn't long before he has dropped a mitten and goes to look for it. A mole is the first to discover the mitten lying on the snow and crawls inside, followed by a rabbit, and a hedgehog, then an owl, a badger, a fox, a bear and, finally a mouse. As I began to tell it and as this magical story unfolded we became the story, acting out each animal in yoga poses. We even took turns calling out other different animals (not in the story) that may have climbed inside the mitten too. (We did this by each child randomly drawing a plastic animal toy out of a special red velvet "grab bag"!)

The story ends with a tremendous sneeze (they liked that part!)  from one of the animals who's nose was tickled and the mitten flies up in the air & is finally found by the boy.

After our story, came the "Snowflake Dance", a variation of "Freeze Dance" only much more floaty & slow!) I watched as eight beautiful little shimmering snowflakes floated & danced through the air to 'snowffalke'  music (Enya's "Tea House Moon" ) and slowly floated & landed back on the ground, to rest, peacefully & quietly..shhhhh!

We played one last game, "The Bell Game" (instructions found below) before cleaning up our mats and saying goodbye.

I knew the class was a success when one young man boldly walked up to me and stated matter-of-factly that he wanted me to come next time and play with them. I told him I would enjoy that very much. Hopefully, I will be invited back to share another adventure with these wonderful kids!

You don't have to be a master and learn all of the poses at once, or the Sanskrit names for them, to enjoy yoga & movement games with your child or students. The ancient Yogis moved their bodies like the animals and trees & other things they saw in nature. You can start the same way, a little at a time, by simply selecting a book, a favorite story or activity and seeing what types of movements you can come up with. Release the idea of how it "should" be. Embrace your own inner child, play, have fun & just see what unfolds.

The practice of yoga is said to 'bring together' all aspects of ourselves, body, mind and soul & when you motivate, engage, play and move with children  a little bit every day, that is exactly what will happen naturally!

To learn more about children's yoga visit: http://www.bodylogique.com/

To find templates and activity ideas for "The Mitten" click here

** To Play "The Bell Game" all you need is a small brass bell & 2 or more players.

Players begin by sitting on their mats, (or at their desks). Each player then will take a turn to carry the bell carefully (as not to ring it!) and set it down gently  in front of the next player. Play continues until each player has had a turn.

*(I don't "keep score" in this game. The objective is to improve concentration, motor planning, self-control and a steady hand. I keep the kids motivated by saying things like , "Its ok-you are doing great/your best!", or  "Just have fun & do your best!" and  "Keep going, just a little more!", "This is hard work and you guys are really concentrating!" etc.)

I learned this game from my first children's yoga teacher, Shakta Khalsa at Radiant Child Yoga. The kids LOVE this game and ask to play it often.

To find more Sensory & Skill Building Movement  Game Instructions, Click here.

Your feedback is welcome! have you tried this in your classroom or at home with your child? Tell us about it in the comments below.


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